By Bus & Rail

Bowl rides go up, but not for all

Concert-goers planning to use the Hollywood Bowl’s popular park-and-ride service this season, take note:

Buy your park-and-ride tickets in advance and you’ll pay the same $5 roundtrip fare that’s been in effect since 1995.

Those who wait to purchase their tickets at boarding time won’t be quite as fortunate.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the first fare increases for the program since 2009. Roundtrip park-and-ride service will go from $8 to $10 for those who purchase at the park-and-ride lots. Roundtrip service from four shuttle lots—two on Ventura Boulevard and the others at Hollywood and Highland and the L.A. Zoo—will increase from $4 to $5.

In either case, patrons will avoid the Bowl’s famously tough stacked parking and will be able to travel with a clear environmental conscience in buses powered by clean diesel or alternative fuels.

And they’ll be in good company. Ridership on the park-and-ride and shuttle programs hit a 10-year high during the 2011 season, with nearly 31% of all patrons using the service. In all, patrons from all over the county logged 422,612 one-way trips by shuttle and park-and-ride last year.

Posted 1/24/11

 

Changes coming for Orange Line riders

Metro’s Orange Line Extension is well on its way to improving transit options in the western San Fernando Valley and beyond. As construction continues, however, some current riders on the rapid transit busway will have their stops temporarily relocated in the days ahead.

From January 18 to January 30, the Pierce College, De  Soto and Canoga Stations will move one block south, along Victory Boulevard. Ticket sales and parking will still be available at the original stations, but patrons should allow extra time to walk to the temporary stops, where tickets will not be sold.

The Orange Line Extension is currently ahead of schedule and under budget. It is expected to open two months early in June with a final price tag of about $180 million, substantially less than the $215.6 million budgeted for the project.

Once the four-mile extension is completed, it will stretch from Canoga Park to the Chatsworth Metrolink Station, improving north-south mobility in the San Fernando Valley and linking with Amtrak and other regional transit providers.

Posted 1/11/12

Ticket sales rise when subways locked

As thousands of L.A. subway riders have learned in recent weeks, honesty is the best policy—especially when somebody’s watching to see whether you paid to ride.

Recent testing to determine the financial impact of locked turnstile gates at four stations, including ticket checks by uniformed inspectors, boosted vending machine sales of day passes and one-way fares by about 50% while gates were locked.

“It was apparent many customers were using [ticket vending machines] for the first time,” according to a report to the agency’s Board of Directors.

As ticket sales went up, overall station entries decreased by 10% during the testing period as some travelers were apparently deterred by the locked gates and presence of ticket-checking staff.

Nevertheless, vending machine revenue was up 35%, the report said. Over time, as customers became accustomed to locked gates, that boost could be expected to level off, perhaps settling around 20%.

The gate-locking trial run also has had financial implications for the traveling public; dozens have been hit with citations carrying fines of up to $250 for riding without a ticket or pass.

The testing comes as Metro continues moving away from its original honor-system approach on the subway toward the locked turnstile set-up common in other large cities such as New York and San Francisco.

The conversion started in 2008, when Metro’s board approved a 10-year, $46 million lease contract to retrofit the Red Line, the Purple Line and some light rail stations with barrier gates—both as a security measure and as a way to recoup lost revenues estimated at the time to be about $5.5 million a year.

Since the gates were installed, however, some have questioned whether the cost of monitoring a locked subway system would outstrip any gain in revenues.

The report did not specifically address that issue, but said the preliminary revenue findings were “quite positive.”

More testing is needed, the report said, to see if patterns hold true when gates are locked during peak travel hours, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. To that end, a new round of locked-gate testing started Oct. 26 and is expected to continue through January 11, 2012. Upcoming stations targeted for the tests are UniversalCity, North Hollywood, Hollywood/Vine, Civic Centerand 7^th/Metro.

In conjunction with the locked gate testing, Metro is heavily promoting use of its TAP cards, which can serve either as transit passes or as stored-value cards from which funds are deducted each time they’re used. The TAP cards aren’t just quick and convenient for riders; they also enable the agency to keep better track of ridership and ensure that everybody’s paying their way.

But there are challenges because some 40% of riders surveyed did not use the cards, or had transferred from other transit agencies that are not yet part of the TAP system.

Even among the 60% of customers with TAP cards, there were issues.

Up to half did not tap their pre-paid cards unless “encouraged” to do so, the report said. And when the turnstiles were in their usual “free-spin” mode, only 25% bothered to tap.

Posted 11/17/11

 

Gaga for night trains

Whether your taste runs more to seeing an incredibly lifelike Lady Gaga at Madame Tussauds or to swimming with sharks at the Aquarium of the Pacific, Metro has a holiday season gift for you—more frequent night trains to popular Los Angeles County destinations starting Sunday, November 13.

Metro’s board chair, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, announced today that the agency’s busiest rail lines—the Red and Purple line subways and the Blue Line light rail—will be stepping up their service between 6 p.m. and midnight. Trains will run every 10 minutes or so—double the current frequency—thanks to a trial program that involves running shorter trains more often.

If it’s successful, the program may be extended to other lines next year.

The night trains were announced at a news conference at the Music Center attended by representatives of arts, sports and entertainment venues—including a teenaged cellist and violinist from the Colburn School, a scuba-suited aquarium board member and the L.A. Kings’ mascot, along with that realistic Lady Gaga mannequin.

The new night service coincides with a series of discounts being offered at an array of participating venues. (Click here for more information.)

To make sure the trains are safe, Villaraigosa said more sheriff’s deputies have been brought in recently, and added that crime on the system overall has declined about 5%.

Posted 11/8/11

A lonelier ride on Dodgers Express

You know the Dodgers are having a tough year when even the free bus service to the stadium is in a slump.

Ridership on the Dodger Stadium Express, which whisks ticketholders free of charge from Union Station to the stadium in clean-burning, natural gas-powered buses, dropped 19% in June and July. Passengers took 37,526 rides to and from the stadium on the Express during that period, compared to 46,337 rides during the same months last year.

On 16 occasions so far this year, regular season ridership on the dedicated fleet of buses has dipped below 1,000, hitting a low of 678 on Monday, July 25, when the Dodgers beat the Rockies 8-5. Last year, regular season ridership on the Express buses went below 1,000 just seven times. Overall, ridership this year to date stands at 81,518, compared to 82,222 at this time last year.

Metro launched the Express service’s rookie season last year with a $300,000 grant from the Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee (MSRC.) A $450,000 grant brought the buses back this year, along with some new post-game Metrolink train service, amid high hopes that the team and its fans would have a season worth celebrating.

It was not to be. The opening day beating of Bryan Stow, along with the team owners’ well-publicized divorce, bankruptcy filing and a dispiriting string of player injuries, set the tone for a dismal season in which attendance has plummeted and the Dodgers are struggling in the lowest rungs of their division. This week, a posting on The Los Angeles Times’ Dodgers blog carried the headline: “It’s official: The worst Dodgers season ever.”

Ridership was so low on Metrolink’s special post-game night trains that the agency recently cancelled the service to the Antelope Valley and Ventura County—although 11 p.m. trains to San Bernardino are continuing as part of the regular schedule.

Yet there’s still hope that the Dodgers Express bus service—though possibly not the Dodgers themselves—will end up the season with the same or slightly better stats than last year. The National League East-leading Phillies are in town next week, and a half-price food-and-drink promotion will be in place for the 12:10 p.m. game on Wednesday, Aug. 10. Another bargain food-and-drink promotion is scheduled for Aug. 31, when the Dodgers play the Padres at 12:10 p.m. (The half-price deal doesn’t apply to alcoholic beverages—a policy change enacted after the Stow beating.)

Both promos are expected to boost ridership and perhaps put the Express on track to equal or even slightly exceed last year’s totals, said Elizabeth Carter, Metro transportation contract services manager. (A Duke Snider bobblehead giveaway on Aug. 9 couldn’t hurt.)

“What really hurt our ridership this year was that incident that happened on opening day,” she said, noting that the economy and public perceptions about the McCourts’ divorce also played a role.

Still, if ridership ends up matching last year’s, that will represent a significant contribution to better air quality in the region. Ray Gorski, technical advisor to the MSRC, said that 77,000 car trips and 1.37 million travel miles were eliminated by virtue of the Dodgers Express service last year.

“I think we still consider the service a success,” said Conan Cheung, Metro’s deputy executive director of service development. He pointed out that, given lower Dodgers attendance levels this year, Express ridership may actually end up representing a higher proportion of fans opting to take the bus.

Those who choose the Express get the good feeling that comes from choosing the environmentally-friendly option, as well as a good deal: a free ride for ticketholders, $1.50 each way for those without.

“We’re getting a lot of compliments,” Carter said. “We get a lot of dedicated riders. They leave the driving to other people, and they don’t have to deal with the traffic.”

Posted 8/3/11

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